History of Religion and Atheism in the USSR

in this video i discuss the history of religion and atheism in the ussr nearly all information for this video will be based on a book by historian from westland university victoria smalkin it was published by princeton university in 2018 under the title a sacred space is never empty a history of soviet atheism and i want to make it clear that this video is not about promoting religious or anti-religious worldview it is about the case study of how the communist party of the soviet union was changing its mind on what religion and atheism really is as a result they had to review their ideas and apply new strategies in their attempt to fight religion first they applied one strategy it didn't work so they had to apply another one it didn't help much either they tried something else it also didn't really work eventually they decided to give up their atheistic project and invited religion to become its allies so the struggle of the soviet communist party over how to deal with religion will be the main focus of this video and please watch until the end if you want to understand why after many decades of the full frontal fight against religion the head of the soviet propaganda and the ideological commission of the ussr one of the top ranking officials lenient ilicious concluded you cannot beat religion simply with lectures in order to squeeze out god it is first necessary to become truly human the true atheist is a person who is in his marrow concerned with the face of those who have become victims of religious ideology a person who bravely invades a person's life and brings the warmth of his heart to the people a human is who is battling for people's souls but before i switch to statistics and other academic and historical data let me tell you a bit of my personal story i was born in the ussr in the early 1980s before garbachov became its head after the collapse of the ussr my country got its independence and started working on its new future without depending on russia and decisions made in moscow being a soviet boy i remember going to a beautiful orthodox church to jump on trampoline and do gymnastics my dressing room was in the bell tower yes it sounds weird another church in my hometown i visited was a museum and the other served as an art gallery yes it was a norm and reality for thousands of churches even in the late 80s early 90s beautiful cathedrals mosques and synagogues in the soviet union were used as libraries swimming pools gyms warehouses and so on but suddenly it all changed in the 90s churches became real churches moreover i became a witness of unprecedented religious revival when people were floating places of worship not just in big cities but even in many small villages you could find protestant missionaries often from the us the land and construction materials were so cheap that they could easily purchase a land and erect a huge church and people were coming many of them had no idea why and where they were going some were coming just to see what was going on or for some material reasons like getting american secondhand clothes yes it really was something unique after collapse of the iron curtain and many people had joined new churches or simply started openly visiting the orthodox churches new religious movements and alternative spiritualities prospered as well thanks to the events in the soviet region scholars of religion have an amazing case study when during 70 years the government had all necessary tools an active desire to reduce the presence of religion they applied government propaganda administrative restrictions and invested incredible amount of resources to defeat religion however what was the result and this is what we are going to discuss here we will focus on a few periods of the soviet era i start from the revolution and new governance under lenin then we'll discuss what happened to religion under the rule of stalin then through shove brezhnev and eventually gerbachov so let's start with a short overview and then we'll return to 1917 and step by step we'll cover each significant milestones first i'll discuss a period under lenin and how his attitude and strategy has changed from ideological to openly aggressive repressions and desire to defeat religion through administrative means lenin at first did not see value in atheism as a philosophical position and we'll discuss why then i focus on the rise and fall of the league of militant godliness under stalin while starting after following lenin's strategy eventually changed his mind and started recovering religion but already under his direct control as a result stalin's last decade from 1943 to 1953 was a period of relative stability in church-state relations and even a small religious revival next we'll cover what happened under her shelf and how he recovered systematic attacks on religion through atheist propaganda under lenin and stalin religion was defined primarily in political terms and focus was on neutralizing religious institutions so what tools were used administrative restrictions they thought that if we close all religious institutions if we kill or send to labor camps all clergy then religion inevitably disappears therefore no surprise that they literally believe that in five years they will create an atheistic society but it didn't happen the party had to redefine the very definition of religion they realized that administrative restrictions will not create an atheistic society religion is not only about religious institutions there is organized religion but there is also popular religiosity and superstitious beliefs and to eradicate them will be much harder it is a long-term process suddenly things that were not considered religious practices before became the focus of their anti-religious campaign i'll discuss this important transformation at the end of this video so please stay with me during khrushchev's era there was an attempt to impose scientific atheism for education however the project of intellectual enlightenment failed and the party after realizing their mistakes attempted to win the hearts of the soviet people through secular rituals and spiritual or positive atheism focusing on raiding not reason but human emotions this mostly happened already during the brezhnev era when the institute of scientific 80s was launched and when social sciences provided research tools and collected data from the fields about real levels of religiosity and feedback from the law it demonstrated that the soviet anti-religious propaganda was not successful they were hitting in the wrong place religion prospered especially in rural areas and among progressive intellectuals in the cities and now after identifying as they thought true functions of religion the parties started working on how to expel religion from the soviet people's life and how to substitute religious functions by similar secular rituals and needs religion must disappear not only from the public space but from people's daily lives and now they needed to transform atheism from a didactic tool that appealed to reason into something positive atheism had to answer new kinds of questions solve new kinds of problems and reach new kinds of spaces in other words atheism itself must become a positive worldview anyway this exposed the limitations of atheistic work and the gap between atheistic theory and practice as a result the attempt with militant atheism under lenin and stalin did not lead to a victory scientific atheism under khrushchev also showed its limitations and now the stakes was on positive for spiritual atheism which appealed to the aesthetic emotional and ritual sides of human experience in my personal opinion this part of the video will be the most interesting for any scholar or simply a person interested in what religion and what atheism can really mean finally we discuss how eventually the communist party was unable to win the hearts of new generations with their atheistic ideology and decided to give up on their atheist project and invite religion back into the public sphere when the orthodox church and the government became allies basically what we can see even in today's russia all this happened already under garbachov and of course at the end we'll focus on the current situation with religion in the post-soviet republics i would like to repeat that nearly all information is based on this wonderful book by victoria smalkin professor smallkin committed herself to seven years of research she spent many days in various archives in russia and ukraine and interviewed people that were directly involved in institutionalized atheist propaganda as a result the book is full of astonishing details about soviet atheists and i highly recommend it what i share here are just the basic details from the book now after this short overview let's get back to the revolution when lenin came to power the bolsheviks instantly passed a few decrees to establish a secular state one of them was the decree on land it nationalized all monastic and church land before 1917 the church was responsible for the registration of births marriages deaths and divorce now the government created a secular bureaucracy and took over this function very soon the bolsheviks removed religion from government and education religious organizations lost their status as juridical entities they were not allowed to own property and parishes now had to lease church buildings from the state while the clergy became employers of the parish but interestingly victoria smalkin writes if marx and lenin wrote little about religion they wrote even less about atheism largely because they consider it unimportant to the revolutionary unfolding of history for both marx and lenin religion had no autonomous power since it was part of the superstructure its existence depended on the economic and political base that nourished it without the capitalist foundation and religious institutions that exploited the masses and its service religion would simply disappear along with private property class divisions the family and the entire burgeous capitalist edifice it basically means that the masses will be able to accept atheism only if the socio-economic roots of the condition that force them to believe in religion are removed religion should die out naturally and gradually in the course of the implementation of the ideas of socialism this way atheism did not produce communism vice versa atheism was the product of communism for more on that see also joseph blank holmes article remembering mark's secularism joseph blankham similarly to victoria smalkin demonstrate that marx recognized the emotional need for religion he believed that religion never warrants a full frontal assault because it is a symptom rather than a cause so marx was against violent measures against religion why is all this important because there is a big possibility that from the start lenin held a non-violent position towards religion like marx he advocated against offending religious feelings since doing so could turn passive believers into active counter-revolutionaries yes lenin hated religion but planned to fight it ideologically there were specific events that led him to change his mind i won't go into details and just mention that it was more likely related to the famine in 1922 and the opposition bolsheviks mad when they tried to requisition church property by force and met with opposition behind this resistance lenin saw the work of the clergy which meant that the church was no longer just a reactionary force but also an active agent of counter-revolution and therefore a political actor as a result lenin decided to choose a path of harsh repressions the clergy were already seen as political enemies that must be neutralized after lenin's death in 1924 stalin adopted a similar approach in 1939 the bolsheviks had practically destroyed the church as an institution all monasteries and seminaries were close more than 50 000 churches were closed or destroyed with only about 100 that still function many priests were killed or sent to labor camps the church went underground churches were looted and destroyed icons were burned publicly while anti-religious museums were created on the territory of most important monasteries and cathedrals of the country in 1931 the main cathedral in moscow of christ the savior was blown in its place the bolsheviks planned to construct the palace of soviets a colossal tower topped by an enormous statue of lenin the palace of soviets was meant to be a testament of the triumph of the new world built on the ruins of the old a palace for the proletariat in place of the palace of its oppressors but the war changed plans and eventually in 1960 the space was filled with enormous heated outdoor swimming pool it functioned up until 1994. today however the cathedral is back and it is the largest orthodox cathedral in russia by the way i visited it in 2005 and yes it is an amazing temple the period from 1932 to 1937 is called the godless five-year plan the league of the militant godless under the leadership of emilia niroslavsky became a very significant force the membership grew from seven hundred thousand in 29 to five point five million and thirty two yaroslavsky also headed the entire religious committee and like many communists was convinced that religion as a product of history will soon disappear the attitude was very optimistic we just push a bit harder and in five years we'll get rid of religion such a statement in itself requires no less faith than religious one as a result they were deceived religion continued its secret underground life and people continued to secretly baptize their children if you want to know more details about this period i recommend to check these books things changed during the war when stalin realized that the soviet union would survive the war and that it would also keep their next territories where religion was present significantly stalin introduced a new model for managing religious affairs on september 4 1943 he called a meeting at his summer residence outside moscow at this meeting stalin informed encounter colonel gergie karpa who had been in charge of counter-intelligence operations that a special organization was being established to manage church state relations to be called the council on the affairs of the russian orthodox church and karpov will be its head the same evening starring invited to kremlin karpov along with metropolitan sergey metropolitan alexa and nikolai starring informed the church hierarchs that patriarchate was being restored and that the church could now count on the state's support after four days on september 8 the orthodox church organized a council composed of 19 bishops 16 of whom had just been released from prison camps some were literally taken from the camps by airplane to moscow so that at the console they would elect metropolitan sergey as the patriarch of the russian orthodox church later hundreds of bishops and thousands of priests were also released from the labor camps while new government council under colonel karpov began the work of reopening religious spaces and registering religious communities so as we see stalin now saw orthodoxy as an instrument of foreign policy on the world stage it also had to do with a significant presence of lutherans and catholics in annexed territories after the war stalin was much more concerned not with the spread of atheism but already with the effective management of religion through the kgb the party never openly renounced atheists but to the dismay of ideologically committed atheists it no longer endowed it with political value or resources atheists such as the league of militant godless understood the signals of the party and faded into the background as a result stalin's last decade from 1943 to 1953 was a period of relative stability in church-state relations and even a small religious revival after the war the russian orthodox church rebuilt its infrastructure by 1954 there were 18 609 functional churches mosques and synagogues and more than 18 thousand registered clerics in the ussr thus atheists practically disappeared from public life until her chef reopened the door for its return so now let's switch to her chauffeur in popular culture her show became famous for two statements that soon religion would exist only in museums and that her show would show the soviet people the last priest on television he is also famous for starting the process of destalinization on february 25 1956 he sharply accused stalin in use of terror violence and repressions and presented it as a betrayal of the party's communist ideals state officials were shocked some suffered heart attacks and some later took their own lives due to those revelations citizens strategic objects named after stalin began to be renamed and his body was taken out of the mausoleum under her shelf there was a transition from looking at religion as a political enemy to viewing it as an ideological opponent the political leaders and ideologists of the soviet union at some point realized that they misunderstood what religious faith really was and that their optimism was deceptive soviet atheism had to renounce its militant origins and became scientific during this period their emphasis began to be placed on scientific atheism and enlightenment but soon they realized that it didn't work either they posed a question if we are building communism here then why decades after the revolution is religion still so influential therefore soviet ideologies were forced to study the psychology of religious people in order to properly organize atheistic education on july 7 1954 the central committee issued a decree on great insufficiencies in the propagation of scientific atheism and on measures of its improvement it pointed to the activity of churches and various religious groups the party started a new aggressive campaign against religion especially in rural areas uh the pressure was put on the media journalists and editors were asked to increase propaganda through radio and television it was necessary to get to people in rural areas it certainly had an effect but still not as desired in the reports sent to the council of the affairs of russian orthodox church the kgb noted that there were even priests who ridiculed the efforts of atheists priests were reported to have said that the quality of soviet atheism was so low that they had nothing to worry about it even had an opposite effect in general the council concluded that the increase of anti-religious propaganda in the media in fact led to a sudden increase in the demand for religious rights especially for baptism the patty admitted defeat and retreated already in november 10 1954 a new decree on errors in the conduct of scientific atheist propaganda among the population addressed the fallout of the summer's entire religious campaign and tried to repair the damage the party had to admit that their understanding of religion was wrong it condemned the use of slander insult administrative interference and the activities of religious organizations and so on the primary message was that in the present historical context religion was to be addressed with ideological rather than political mechanisms the report revealed that religious institutions that operated legally were indeed patriotic it was therefore incorrect to see the clergy and believers as internal enemies they are citizens whose rights and feelings had to be respected therefore religion was no longer a political enemy to be repressed but an alien ideology to be eradicated for enlightenment the battle now was with the belief not the believer in 1954 soviet society was a little confused because of such a duality some even suggested a third way that put religion at the service of communism but after 1957 things changed khrushchev was able to defeat his political opponents and now had full power in his hands in 1958 a new war was declared on religion new decrees imposed even harsher taxes on church and monasteries both the church and the party understood that their success depended on their ability to influence the next generation so the church was ordered to limit the number of applicants admitted to seminaries and raised the age of entry from 18 to 30. in the time of russia 5 out of 8 theological seminaries were closed the number of operating monasteries which reached 100 in 1945 was reduced to 18 by the mid 60s the number of churches and chapels decreased from about 13 000 in 1960 to 7 or 8 000 in the mid 60s in general everything was done to limit the economic power and social autonomy of the clergy priests were forbidden to take part in making any administrative or financial decisions and were put on a monthly salary thus the party wanted to deprive priests of material incentives because now it doesn't matter how many rites of baptism you perform the salary will remain the same in addition to these citizens of the ussr were required to present their passport data for the rituals this way the party collected information and could then pass it on to workplace or schools also the pressure was put on school teachers and atheist propaganda in schools plus in the period from 59 to 63 many anti-religious movies were screened of course an anti-religious campaign of this magnitude should have yelled at result but as it turned out not quite the ones that party had hoped for once again the government had to recognize the flexibility and resilience of religion it realized that administrative restrictions again would not lead to the inevitable extension of faith this troubling conclusion was brought to the central committee in 1964 by the deputy head of the kgb's chief directorate feder sherbach in a secret report titled on facts of administrative measures against believers he basically reported that local authorities closed many churches prayer houses and mosques they fired religious believers from work and expelled students from universities for observing religious rights most of these entire religious measures his were illegal and led to undesirable consequences such as increased religious fanaticism as well as the growth of unregistered religious groups and their movement underground where authorities could no longer monitor their activities he spoke of a few specific cases when in some regions after officials closed several baptist prayer houses the number of pastors and believers had only increased in addition sherbach noted that the repressive anti-religious policy did not achieve any serious atheistic goals but at the same time attracted negative attention abroad for more details please read chapter 2 of the book later in 1966 the council for religious affairs also admitted that the illegal rush closure of churches under her shove had only increased religiosity examples were given from new prepaid roofs and volunteer regions and from moldova where most of the churches were closed but in response the number of riots in the remaining few churches increased significantly compared to all the previous ones taken together at the same time in the field of scientific propaganda they also failed they realized that science cannot solve the problem with religion in reality most people don't care about scientific progress or simply find it hard to see any contradictions between scientific knowledge and religious devotion as a result scientific atheism was not able to fill the empty space and soviet people's soul let me give you some details on that during the khrushchev period the space race was never a purely scientific or technological competition but also ideological some famous people were invited to participate in atheistic propaganda such as the soviet cosmonaut germantitov the second person to go to space after gagarin also planetariums began to be considered the most effective space for atheistic work the state began to invest a lot of resources in the construction of new planetariums those responsible for atheistic propaganda called for the creation of planetariums in every major soviet city so in 1973 there were already more than 70 planetariums in the country by the way many of them were open in former churches thus the moscow planetarium was to become the coordinating center for soviet atheism as victorious smoking stated if cosmonauts were the saints of scientific atheism then the planetarium was the temple anyway it became a place where hundreds of thousands of people would hear lectures and watch films on scientific atheism with titles like why i broke with religion or the atheist significance of space flights plus ideologies of atheism not only invited believers to attend lectures but also brought the planetarium to believers they had agitation buses or mobile planetariums that could organize lectures and exhibits even in rural areas collective farms pioneer camps military complexes and so on but atheist lectures have been criticized for relying almost exclusively on the natural sciences and avoiding philosophical issues people complained that lectures were too dry and boring or some people simply interpret them in their own way after listening a lecture about the beauty of cosmos some shared their impressions by saying we like how delightfully god created the universe this demonstrated that scientific education does not necessarily contain atheistic propaganda and that atheists need to understand religion and religiosity much deeper look at this cartoon here the angels take the atheist lecture to heaven when he asks why are you lifting me up angel's answer for bad atheist lectures germantitov also mentioned that cosmonauts were fundamentally unfamiliar with religion and therefore lacked the religious literacy that would give their claims power he said and if by chance i come across some atheist books then with rare exception those books were so boring and that unless there was a real necessity one does not really want to read them all in all these and other factors caused soviet officials to reconsider their belief that science was atheism's most powerful weapon and that their predictions about the future of religion were real plus they realized that religion is not something static it always keeps transforming and modernizing conventional marxist's idea that religion is something activistic medieval or incapable of modernization proved to be wrong therefore it revealed some ideological blind spots of marxism leninism according to the patterns of development outlined by marxism leninism religion supposed to disappear under the pressure of socialistic construction and scientific progress but it didn't happen when atheists encountered lived religiosity they realized that customary explanation for the persistence of religion for example economic explanations about social inequalities or political explanations or the notion that it is the product of ignorance and backwardness indeed were very superficial they could not explain the complex spiritual landscape on the ground reports from the field demonstrated that people had no problem believing in god lenin and horshoff and it is not rare to find in the home of a believer a prayer book line next to the program of the communist party plus religion's emphasis on the social doctrine undermine communism claimed to be the sole salvation of the weak and oppressed that is religion helped to solve real social problems the believing communities supported each other financially and psychologically therefore believers did not see a contradiction between their religious beliefs and loyalty to the soviet state many of those surveyed consider communism to be the manifestation of christian ideals even some party members did not see the contradiction like why fight religion at all why can't we build a good socialistic state with religion on our side so there was a confusion some lecturers complain that when they tell people that religion is harmful they are asked to explain why religion is harmful and what exactly is so harmful in it in such situation they usually could not give a good clear answer but only get off with general information anyway as we see it the ideological establishment lacked a clear picture of the emotional world of soviet people the second ideologist in the ussr after suslov was lenient ilicio who was through chef's protege and headed the ideological commission so in 1963 he emphasized that the decrease in the number of churches did not affect the number of rights in ukraine 40 and in moldova 47 of children born were baptized religiosity remained high in the baltic in the 20s 68 percent of births 50 of marriages and 70 of funerals were religious in other regions of the ussr religious rights increased and even the intelligence and party members often observed religious rituals so how come if we look at the big picture on one hand we have a government with enormous administrative and material resources for many decades they invest all these resources to systematically combat religion on the other hand we have oppressed and humiliated religion often underground without any access to media radio television and yet their popularity among people is not just dying out but even increasing in some regions so what was wrong in november 1963 the ideological commission met again to discuss atheists work in light of ilichoff's article on the formation of the scientific worldview and atheist education in the article ilichof argued that atheist propaganda appeals to reason but loses sight of emotions the clergy and sectarians aim to act not only and not so much on reason as on emotions we ourselves need to not only understand the meaning of the emotional factor but to make practical use of it i remind you this is opinion of the head of ideological commission of the ussr one of the top ranking officials he also stated you cannot beat religion simply with lectures in order to squeeze out god it is first necessary to become truly human the true atheist is a person who in his marrow concerned with the fates of those who have become victims of religious ideology a person who bravely invades a person's life and bring the warmth of his heart to the people a humanist who is battling for people's souls as you may see it sounds like a serious realization an ideological commission that he headed since then has focused on every day's life and the family that became one of the battlegrounds for the soviet soul atheist ideologists were reminded that religion plays a very important function in people's life it has ability to console them in times of pain and grief for example jared diamond in his the world until yesterday reminds that one reason religion spread and endured was because it encouraged norms of sharing which were crucial to survival in an environment where there was no social security system diamond argues that religion itself has served seven different functions in the course of human history and that the importance of giving functions varied at different phases of development from being extremely important to being entirely absent you can see them on the screen and diamond believes that if in the next 30 years the living standards will continue to rise function 1 and functions 4 for 7 will continue to decline but functions 2 and 3 diffusing anxiety through ritual and providing comfort about pain and death will continue to persist what kind of hint that those functions of religion are really crucial so what soviet atheists supposed to do after realizing it they were asked to approach the soviet person as an individual take an interest in the joys and worries that accompany life and intervene when help was needed as ilichoff stated the battle with religion should be connected with the battle for improving the conditions of people's life the battle should be conducted in such a way that the believer would see in the atheist a close friend who wishes him good and not evil so if they really want to achieve success it was not enough to place administrative restrictions on religious life or fill soviet newspaper and lecture halls with enlightenment propaganda atheism needed its own clerical caste capable of doing the pastoral work that would bring soviet people to atheism this was conclusion as you may see the ideologies of atheism eventually realize that it is more effective to fight religion not with the strong hand of power and oppression and also not with the power of knowledge and science and not with criticism on ridicule but with sincere care and love this is what people really need the ideologies of atheism realize that religion is not so much a system of views as a system of feelings one prominent atheist gave an example about the importance of religious emotions he said that when he visited a baptist meeting believers referred to one another as brother and sister creating the sands of the intimate community and this was more important than any religious dogma and belief as one woman at the meeting told him she really didn't care whether god exists she would remain religious since because of religion life is much easier for her than for atheists he then added that we cannot forget that one does not cure the sikh with the stick and that man's spiritual world cannot remain unfilled if we do not feel it it will be filled by those whose views are foreign to us a sacred space never remains empty i hope now you understand why victoria small king's book is called that way but what they did to address this realization how they worked on filling this empty space and with what i'll discuss in the next video it will be focused on the work of institute of scientific atheism during brezhnev era i'll tell you how the atheist apparatus tried to transform atheism from a deductive tool that appealed to reason into an emotional spiritual or positive atheism investing lots of resources and secular rituals i promise it will be very interesting so please check if you are subscribed to the channel click the bell icon to turn on notifications also please like the video leave a comment below and check out my other videos once again details are in the book and i highly recommend it the link is below thank you

in this video i discuss the history of religion and atheism in the ussr nearly all information for this video will be based on a book by historian from westland university victoria smalkin it was published by princeton university in 2018 under the title a sacred space is never empty a history of soviet atheism and i want to make it clear that this video is not about promoting religious or anti-religious worldview it is about the case study of how the communist party of the soviet union was changing its mind on what religion and atheism really is as a result they had to review their ideas and apply new strategies in their attempt to fight religion first they applied one strategy it didn&#39;t work so they had to apply another one it didn&#39;t help much either they tried something else it also didn&#39;t really work eventually they decided to give up their atheistic project and invited religion to become its allies so the struggle of the soviet communist party over how to deal with religion will be the main focus of this video and please watch until the end if you want to understand why after many decades of the full frontal fight against religion the head of the soviet propaganda and the ideological commission of the ussr one of the top ranking officials lenient ilicious concluded you cannot beat religion simply with lectures in order to squeeze out god it is first necessary to become truly human the true atheist is a person who is in his marrow concerned with the face of those who have become victims of religious ideology a person who bravely invades a person&#39;s life and brings the warmth of his heart to the people a human is who is battling for people&#39;s souls but before i switch to statistics and other academic and historical data let me tell you a bit of my personal story i was born in the ussr in the early 1980s before garbachov became its head after the collapse of the ussr my country got its independence and started working on its new future without depending on russia and decisions made in moscow being a soviet boy i remember going to a beautiful orthodox church to jump on trampoline and do gymnastics my dressing room was in the bell tower yes it sounds weird another church in my hometown i visited was a museum and the other served as an art gallery yes it was a norm and reality for thousands of churches even in the late 80s early 90s beautiful cathedrals mosques and synagogues in the soviet union were used as libraries swimming pools gyms warehouses and so on but suddenly it all changed in the 90s churches became real churches moreover i became a witness of unprecedented religious revival when people were floating places of worship not just in big cities but even in many small villages you could find protestant missionaries often from the us the land and construction materials were so cheap that they could easily purchase a land and erect a huge church and people were coming many of them had no idea why and where they were going some were coming just to see what was going on or for some material reasons like getting american secondhand clothes yes it really was something unique after collapse of the iron curtain and many people had joined new churches or simply started openly visiting the orthodox churches new religious movements and alternative spiritualities prospered as well thanks to the events in the soviet region scholars of religion have an amazing case study when during 70 years the government had all necessary tools an active desire to reduce the presence of religion they applied government propaganda administrative restrictions and invested incredible amount of resources to defeat religion however what was the result and this is what we are going to discuss here we will focus on a few periods of the soviet era i start from the revolution and new governance under lenin then we&#39;ll discuss what happened to religion under the rule of stalin then through shove brezhnev and eventually gerbachov so let&#39;s start with a short overview and then we&#39;ll return to 1917 and step by step we&#39;ll cover each significant milestones first i&#39;ll discuss a period under lenin and how his attitude and strategy has changed from ideological to openly aggressive repressions and desire to defeat religion through administrative means lenin at first did not see value in atheism as a philosophical position and we&#39;ll discuss why then i focus on the rise and fall of the league of militant godliness under stalin while starting after following lenin&#39;s strategy eventually changed his mind and started recovering religion but already under his direct control as a result stalin&#39;s last decade from 1943 to 1953 was a period of relative stability in church-state relations and even a small religious revival next we&#39;ll cover what happened under her shelf and how he recovered systematic attacks on religion through atheist propaganda under lenin and stalin religion was defined primarily in political terms and focus was on neutralizing religious institutions so what tools were used administrative restrictions they thought that if we close all religious institutions if we kill or send to labor camps all clergy then religion inevitably disappears therefore no surprise that they literally believe that in five years they will create an atheistic society but it didn&#39;t happen the party had to redefine the very definition of religion they realized that administrative restrictions will not create an atheistic society religion is not only about religious institutions there is organized religion but there is also popular religiosity and superstitious beliefs and to eradicate them will be much harder it is a long-term process suddenly things that were not considered religious practices before became the focus of their anti-religious campaign i&#39;ll discuss this important transformation at the end of this video so please stay with me during khrushchev&#39;s era there was an attempt to impose scientific atheism for education however the project of intellectual enlightenment failed and the party after realizing their mistakes attempted to win the hearts of the soviet people through secular rituals and spiritual or positive atheism focusing on raiding not reason but human emotions this mostly happened already during the brezhnev era when the institute of scientific 80s was launched and when social sciences provided research tools and collected data from the fields about real levels of religiosity and feedback from the law it demonstrated that the soviet anti-religious propaganda was not successful they were hitting in the wrong place religion prospered especially in rural areas and among progressive intellectuals in the cities and now after identifying as they thought true functions of religion the parties started working on how to expel religion from the soviet people&#39;s life and how to substitute religious functions by similar secular rituals and needs religion must disappear not only from the public space but from people&#39;s daily lives and now they needed to transform atheism from a didactic tool that appealed to reason into something positive atheism had to answer new kinds of questions solve new kinds of problems and reach new kinds of spaces in other words atheism itself must become a positive worldview anyway this exposed the limitations of atheistic work and the gap between atheistic theory and practice as a result the attempt with militant atheism under lenin and stalin did not lead to a victory scientific atheism under khrushchev also showed its limitations and now the stakes was on positive for spiritual atheism which appealed to the aesthetic emotional and ritual sides of human experience in my personal opinion this part of the video will be the most interesting for any scholar or simply a person interested in what religion and what atheism can really mean finally we discuss how eventually the communist party was unable to win the hearts of new generations with their atheistic ideology and decided to give up on their atheist project and invite religion back into the public sphere when the orthodox church and the government became allies basically what we can see even in today&#39;s russia all this happened already under garbachov and of course at the end we&#39;ll focus on the current situation with religion in the post-soviet republics i would like to repeat that nearly all information is based on this wonderful book by victoria smalkin professor smallkin committed herself to seven years of research she spent many days in various archives in russia and ukraine and interviewed people that were directly involved in institutionalized atheist propaganda as a result the book is full of astonishing details about soviet atheists and i highly recommend it what i share here are just the basic details from the book now after this short overview let&#39;s get back to the revolution when lenin came to power the bolsheviks instantly passed a few decrees to establish a secular state one of them was the decree on land it nationalized all monastic and church land before 1917 the church was responsible for the registration of births marriages deaths and divorce now the government created a secular bureaucracy and took over this function very soon the bolsheviks removed religion from government and education religious organizations lost their status as juridical entities they were not allowed to own property and parishes now had to lease church buildings from the state while the clergy became employers of the parish but interestingly victoria smalkin writes if marx and lenin wrote little about religion they wrote even less about atheism largely because they consider it unimportant to the revolutionary unfolding of history for both marx and lenin religion had no autonomous power since it was part of the superstructure its existence depended on the economic and political base that nourished it without the capitalist foundation and religious institutions that exploited the masses and its service religion would simply disappear along with private property class divisions the family and the entire burgeous capitalist edifice it basically means that the masses will be able to accept atheism only if the socio-economic roots of the condition that force them to believe in religion are removed religion should die out naturally and gradually in the course of the implementation of the ideas of socialism this way atheism did not produce communism vice versa atheism was the product of communism for more on that see also joseph blank holmes article remembering mark&#39;s secularism joseph blankham similarly to victoria smalkin demonstrate that marx recognized the emotional need for religion he believed that religion never warrants a full frontal assault because it is a symptom rather than a cause so marx was against violent measures against religion why is all this important because there is a big possibility that from the start lenin held a non-violent position towards religion like marx he advocated against offending religious feelings since doing so could turn passive believers into active counter-revolutionaries yes lenin hated religion but planned to fight it ideologically there were specific events that led him to change his mind i won&#39;t go into details and just mention that it was more likely related to the famine in 1922 and the opposition bolsheviks mad when they tried to requisition church property by force and met with opposition behind this resistance lenin saw the work of the clergy which meant that the church was no longer just a reactionary force but also an active agent of counter-revolution and therefore a political actor as a result lenin decided to choose a path of harsh repressions the clergy were already seen as political enemies that must be neutralized after lenin&#39;s death in 1924 stalin adopted a similar approach in 1939 the bolsheviks had practically destroyed the church as an institution all monasteries and seminaries were close more than 50 000 churches were closed or destroyed with only about 100 that still function many priests were killed or sent to labor camps the church went underground churches were looted and destroyed icons were burned publicly while anti-religious museums were created on the territory of most important monasteries and cathedrals of the country in 1931 the main cathedral in moscow of christ the savior was blown in its place the bolsheviks planned to construct the palace of soviets a colossal tower topped by an enormous statue of lenin the palace of soviets was meant to be a testament of the triumph of the new world built on the ruins of the old a palace for the proletariat in place of the palace of its oppressors but the war changed plans and eventually in 1960 the space was filled with enormous heated outdoor swimming pool it functioned up until 1994. today however the cathedral is back and it is the largest orthodox cathedral in russia by the way i visited it in 2005 and yes it is an amazing temple the period from 1932 to 1937 is called the godless five-year plan the league of the militant godless under the leadership of emilia niroslavsky became a very significant force the membership grew from seven hundred thousand in 29 to five point five million and thirty two yaroslavsky also headed the entire religious committee and like many communists was convinced that religion as a product of history will soon disappear the attitude was very optimistic we just push a bit harder and in five years we&#39;ll get rid of religion such a statement in itself requires no less faith than religious one as a result they were deceived religion continued its secret underground life and people continued to secretly baptize their children if you want to know more details about this period i recommend to check these books things changed during the war when stalin realized that the soviet union would survive the war and that it would also keep their next territories where religion was present significantly stalin introduced a new model for managing religious affairs on september 4 1943 he called a meeting at his summer residence outside moscow at this meeting stalin informed encounter colonel gergie karpa who had been in charge of counter-intelligence operations that a special organization was being established to manage church state relations to be called the council on the affairs of the russian orthodox church and karpov will be its head the same evening starring invited to kremlin karpov along with metropolitan sergey metropolitan alexa and nikolai starring informed the church hierarchs that patriarchate was being restored and that the church could now count on the state&#39;s support after four days on september 8 the orthodox church organized a council composed of 19 bishops 16 of whom had just been released from prison camps some were literally taken from the camps by airplane to moscow so that at the console they would elect metropolitan sergey as the patriarch of the russian orthodox church later hundreds of bishops and thousands of priests were also released from the labor camps while new government council under colonel karpov began the work of reopening religious spaces and registering religious communities so as we see stalin now saw orthodoxy as an instrument of foreign policy on the world stage it also had to do with a significant presence of lutherans and catholics in annexed territories after the war stalin was much more concerned not with the spread of atheism but already with the effective management of religion through the kgb the party never openly renounced atheists but to the dismay of ideologically committed atheists it no longer endowed it with political value or resources atheists such as the league of militant godless understood the signals of the party and faded into the background as a result stalin&#39;s last decade from 1943 to 1953 was a period of relative stability in church-state relations and even a small religious revival after the war the russian orthodox church rebuilt its infrastructure by 1954 there were 18 609 functional churches mosques and synagogues and more than 18 thousand registered clerics in the ussr thus atheists practically disappeared from public life until her chef reopened the door for its return so now let&#39;s switch to her chauffeur in popular culture her show became famous for two statements that soon religion would exist only in museums and that her show would show the soviet people the last priest on television he is also famous for starting the process of destalinization on february 25 1956 he sharply accused stalin in use of terror violence and repressions and presented it as a betrayal of the party&#39;s communist ideals state officials were shocked some suffered heart attacks and some later took their own lives due to those revelations citizens strategic objects named after stalin began to be renamed and his body was taken out of the mausoleum under her shelf there was a transition from looking at religion as a political enemy to viewing it as an ideological opponent the political leaders and ideologists of the soviet union at some point realized that they misunderstood what religious faith really was and that their optimism was deceptive soviet atheism had to renounce its militant origins and became scientific during this period their emphasis began to be placed on scientific atheism and enlightenment but soon they realized that it didn&#39;t work either they posed a question if we are building communism here then why decades after the revolution is religion still so influential therefore soviet ideologies were forced to study the psychology of religious people in order to properly organize atheistic education on july 7 1954 the central committee issued a decree on great insufficiencies in the propagation of scientific atheism and on measures of its improvement it pointed to the activity of churches and various religious groups the party started a new aggressive campaign against religion especially in rural areas uh the pressure was put on the media journalists and editors were asked to increase propaganda through radio and television it was necessary to get to people in rural areas it certainly had an effect but still not as desired in the reports sent to the council of the affairs of russian orthodox church the kgb noted that there were even priests who ridiculed the efforts of atheists priests were reported to have said that the quality of soviet atheism was so low that they had nothing to worry about it even had an opposite effect in general the council concluded that the increase of anti-religious propaganda in the media in fact led to a sudden increase in the demand for religious rights especially for baptism the patty admitted defeat and retreated already in november 10 1954 a new decree on errors in the conduct of scientific atheist propaganda among the population addressed the fallout of the summer&#39;s entire religious campaign and tried to repair the damage the party had to admit that their understanding of religion was wrong it condemned the use of slander insult administrative interference and the activities of religious organizations and so on the primary message was that in the present historical context religion was to be addressed with ideological rather than political mechanisms the report revealed that religious institutions that operated legally were indeed patriotic it was therefore incorrect to see the clergy and believers as internal enemies they are citizens whose rights and feelings had to be respected therefore religion was no longer a political enemy to be repressed but an alien ideology to be eradicated for enlightenment the battle now was with the belief not the believer in 1954 soviet society was a little confused because of such a duality some even suggested a third way that put religion at the service of communism but after 1957 things changed khrushchev was able to defeat his political opponents and now had full power in his hands in 1958 a new war was declared on religion new decrees imposed even harsher taxes on church and monasteries both the church and the party understood that their success depended on their ability to influence the next generation so the church was ordered to limit the number of applicants admitted to seminaries and raised the age of entry from 18 to 30. in the time of russia 5 out of 8 theological seminaries were closed the number of operating monasteries which reached 100 in 1945 was reduced to 18 by the mid 60s the number of churches and chapels decreased from about 13 000 in 1960 to 7 or 8 000 in the mid 60s in general everything was done to limit the economic power and social autonomy of the clergy priests were forbidden to take part in making any administrative or financial decisions and were put on a monthly salary thus the party wanted to deprive priests of material incentives because now it doesn&#39;t matter how many rites of baptism you perform the salary will remain the same in addition to these citizens of the ussr were required to present their passport data for the rituals this way the party collected information and could then pass it on to workplace or schools also the pressure was put on school teachers and atheist propaganda in schools plus in the period from 59 to 63 many anti-religious movies were screened of course an anti-religious campaign of this magnitude should have yelled at result but as it turned out not quite the ones that party had hoped for once again the government had to recognize the flexibility and resilience of religion it realized that administrative restrictions again would not lead to the inevitable extension of faith this troubling conclusion was brought to the central committee in 1964 by the deputy head of the kgb&#39;s chief directorate feder sherbach in a secret report titled on facts of administrative measures against believers he basically reported that local authorities closed many churches prayer houses and mosques they fired religious believers from work and expelled students from universities for observing religious rights most of these entire religious measures his were illegal and led to undesirable consequences such as increased religious fanaticism as well as the growth of unregistered religious groups and their movement underground where authorities could no longer monitor their activities he spoke of a few specific cases when in some regions after officials closed several baptist prayer houses the number of pastors and believers had only increased in addition sherbach noted that the repressive anti-religious policy did not achieve any serious atheistic goals but at the same time attracted negative attention abroad for more details please read chapter 2 of the book later in 1966 the council for religious affairs also admitted that the illegal rush closure of churches under her shove had only increased religiosity examples were given from new prepaid roofs and volunteer regions and from moldova where most of the churches were closed but in response the number of riots in the remaining few churches increased significantly compared to all the previous ones taken together at the same time in the field of scientific propaganda they also failed they realized that science cannot solve the problem with religion in reality most people don&#39;t care about scientific progress or simply find it hard to see any contradictions between scientific knowledge and religious devotion as a result scientific atheism was not able to fill the empty space and soviet people&#39;s soul let me give you some details on that during the khrushchev period the space race was never a purely scientific or technological competition but also ideological some famous people were invited to participate in atheistic propaganda such as the soviet cosmonaut germantitov the second person to go to space after gagarin also planetariums began to be considered the most effective space for atheistic work the state began to invest a lot of resources in the construction of new planetariums those responsible for atheistic propaganda called for the creation of planetariums in every major soviet city so in 1973 there were already more than 70 planetariums in the country by the way many of them were open in former churches thus the moscow planetarium was to become the coordinating center for soviet atheism as victorious smoking stated if cosmonauts were the saints of scientific atheism then the planetarium was the temple anyway it became a place where hundreds of thousands of people would hear lectures and watch films on scientific atheism with titles like why i broke with religion or the atheist significance of space flights plus ideologies of atheism not only invited believers to attend lectures but also brought the planetarium to believers they had agitation buses or mobile planetariums that could organize lectures and exhibits even in rural areas collective farms pioneer camps military complexes and so on but atheist lectures have been criticized for relying almost exclusively on the natural sciences and avoiding philosophical issues people complained that lectures were too dry and boring or some people simply interpret them in their own way after listening a lecture about the beauty of cosmos some shared their impressions by saying we like how delightfully god created the universe this demonstrated that scientific education does not necessarily contain atheistic propaganda and that atheists need to understand religion and religiosity much deeper look at this cartoon here the angels take the atheist lecture to heaven when he asks why are you lifting me up angel&#39;s answer for bad atheist lectures germantitov also mentioned that cosmonauts were fundamentally unfamiliar with religion and therefore lacked the religious literacy that would give their claims power he said and if by chance i come across some atheist books then with rare exception those books were so boring and that unless there was a real necessity one does not really want to read them all in all these and other factors caused soviet officials to reconsider their belief that science was atheism&#39;s most powerful weapon and that their predictions about the future of religion were real plus they realized that religion is not something static it always keeps transforming and modernizing conventional marxist&#39;s idea that religion is something activistic medieval or incapable of modernization proved to be wrong therefore it revealed some ideological blind spots of marxism leninism according to the patterns of development outlined by marxism leninism religion supposed to disappear under the pressure of socialistic construction and scientific progress but it didn&#39;t happen when atheists encountered lived religiosity they realized that customary explanation for the persistence of religion for example economic explanations about social inequalities or political explanations or the notion that it is the product of ignorance and backwardness indeed were very superficial they could not explain the complex spiritual landscape on the ground reports from the field demonstrated that people had no problem believing in god lenin and horshoff and it is not rare to find in the home of a believer a prayer book line next to the program of the communist party plus religion&#39;s emphasis on the social doctrine undermine communism claimed to be the sole salvation of the weak and oppressed that is religion helped to solve real social problems the believing communities supported each other financially and psychologically therefore believers did not see a contradiction between their religious beliefs and loyalty to the soviet state many of those surveyed consider communism to be the manifestation of christian ideals even some party members did not see the contradiction like why fight religion at all why can&#39;t we build a good socialistic state with religion on our side so there was a confusion some lecturers complain that when they tell people that religion is harmful they are asked to explain why religion is harmful and what exactly is so harmful in it in such situation they usually could not give a good clear answer but only get off with general information anyway as we see it the ideological establishment lacked a clear picture of the emotional world of soviet people the second ideologist in the ussr after suslov was lenient ilicio who was through chef&#39;s protege and headed the ideological commission so in 1963 he emphasized that the decrease in the number of churches did not affect the number of rights in ukraine 40 and in moldova 47 of children born were baptized religiosity remained high in the baltic in the 20s 68 percent of births 50 of marriages and 70 of funerals were religious in other regions of the ussr religious rights increased and even the intelligence and party members often observed religious rituals so how come if we look at the big picture on one hand we have a government with enormous administrative and material resources for many decades they invest all these resources to systematically combat religion on the other hand we have oppressed and humiliated religion often underground without any access to media radio television and yet their popularity among people is not just dying out but even increasing in some regions so what was wrong in november 1963 the ideological commission met again to discuss atheists work in light of ilichoff&#39;s article on the formation of the scientific worldview and atheist education in the article ilichof argued that atheist propaganda appeals to reason but loses sight of emotions the clergy and sectarians aim to act not only and not so much on reason as on emotions we ourselves need to not only understand the meaning of the emotional factor but to make practical use of it i remind you this is opinion of the head of ideological commission of the ussr one of the top ranking officials he also stated you cannot beat religion simply with lectures in order to squeeze out god it is first necessary to become truly human the true atheist is a person who in his marrow concerned with the fates of those who have become victims of religious ideology a person who bravely invades a person&#39;s life and bring the warmth of his heart to the people a humanist who is battling for people&#39;s souls as you may see it sounds like a serious realization an ideological commission that he headed since then has focused on every day&#39;s life and the family that became one of the battlegrounds for the soviet soul atheist ideologists were reminded that religion plays a very important function in people&#39;s life it has ability to console them in times of pain and grief for example jared diamond in his the world until yesterday reminds that one reason religion spread and endured was because it encouraged norms of sharing which were crucial to survival in an environment where there was no social security system diamond argues that religion itself has served seven different functions in the course of human history and that the importance of giving functions varied at different phases of development from being extremely important to being entirely absent you can see them on the screen and diamond believes that if in the next 30 years the living standards will continue to rise function 1 and functions 4 for 7 will continue to decline but functions 2 and 3 diffusing anxiety through ritual and providing comfort about pain and death will continue to persist what kind of hint that those functions of religion are really crucial so what soviet atheists supposed to do after realizing it they were asked to approach the soviet person as an individual take an interest in the joys and worries that accompany life and intervene when help was needed as ilichoff stated the battle with religion should be connected with the battle for improving the conditions of people&#39;s life the battle should be conducted in such a way that the believer would see in the atheist a close friend who wishes him good and not evil so if they really want to achieve success it was not enough to place administrative restrictions on religious life or fill soviet newspaper and lecture halls with enlightenment propaganda atheism needed its own clerical caste capable of doing the pastoral work that would bring soviet people to atheism this was conclusion as you may see the ideologies of atheism eventually realize that it is more effective to fight religion not with the strong hand of power and oppression and also not with the power of knowledge and science and not with criticism on ridicule but with sincere care and love this is what people really need the ideologies of atheism realize that religion is not so much a system of views as a system of feelings one prominent atheist gave an example about the importance of religious emotions he said that when he visited a baptist meeting believers referred to one another as brother and sister creating the sands of the intimate community and this was more important than any religious dogma and belief as one woman at the meeting told him she really didn&#39;t care whether god exists she would remain religious since because of religion life is much easier for her than for atheists he then added that we cannot forget that one does not cure the sikh with the stick and that man&#39;s spiritual world cannot remain unfilled if we do not feel it it will be filled by those whose views are foreign to us a sacred space never remains empty i hope now you understand why victoria small king&#39;s book is called that way but what they did to address this realization how they worked on filling this empty space and with what i&#39;ll discuss in the next video it will be focused on the work of institute of scientific atheism during brezhnev era i&#39;ll tell you how the atheist apparatus tried to transform atheism from a deductive tool that appealed to reason into an emotional spiritual or positive atheism investing lots of resources and secular rituals i promise it will be very interesting so please check if you are subscribed to the channel click the bell icon to turn on notifications also please like the video leave a comment below and check out my other videos once again details are in the book and i highly recommend it the link is below thank you

Transcript for:History of Religion and Atheism in the USSR

Transcript for:
History of Religion and Atheism in the USSR