The USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941 was a new phase of anti-religious campaign in the Soviet Union following the anti-religious campaign of 1921–1928. The campaign began in 1929, with the drafting of new legislation that severely prohibited religious activities and called for an education process on religion in order to further disseminate atheism and materialist philosophy. This had been preceded in 1928 at the fifteenth Party congress, where Joseph Stalin criticized the party for failure to produce more active and persuasive anti-religious propaganda. This new phase coincided with the beginning of the mass collectivization of agriculture and the nationalization of the few remaining private enterprises.
The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and a number of its believers, were shot or sent to labour camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited.Olga Tchepournaya. The hidden sphere of religious searches in the Soviet Union: independent religious communities in Leningrad from the 1960s to the 1970s. Sociology of Religion 64.3 (Fall 2003): p. 377(12). (4690 words) Only a twelfth of the Russian Orthodox Church's priests were left functioning in their parishes by 1941.D. Pospielovsky, The Russian Orthodox Church under the Soviet Regime, vol. 1, p.175.
In the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to less than 500 (1.7%) due to systematic demolitions of the churches and cathedrals.Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988)
The campaign slowed down in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and came to an abrupt end after the commencement of Operation Barbarossa and the Invasion of Poland. The challenge produced by the German invasion would ultimately prevent the public withering away of religion in Soviet society.John Anderson. The Council for Religious Affairs and the Shaping of Soviet Religious Policy. Soviet Studies, Vol. 43, No. 4 (1991), pp. 689-710
This campaign, like the campaigns of other periods that formed the basis of the USSR's efforts to eliminate religion and replace it with atheism supported with a materialist world view, was accompanied with official claims that there was no religious persecution in the USSR, and that believers who were being targeted were for other reasons. Believers were in fact being widely targeted and persecuted for their belief or promotion of religion, as part of the state's campaign to disseminate atheism, but officially the state claimed that no such persecution existed and that the people being targeted—when they admitted that people were being targeted—were only being attacked for resistance to the state or breaking the law. This guise served Soviet propaganda abroad, where it tried to promote a better image of itself especially in light of the great criticism against it from foreign religious influences.
Education
In 1928 the Soviet People's Commissar for Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, pressured by leftist Marxists, agreed to an entirely anti-religious education system from the first grade up, however, he still warned against a general expulsion of teachers with religious beliefs due to the shortage of atheist teachers. In 1929 an Agitprop conference resolved to intensify anti-religious work throughout the education system. This led to the setting-up of anti-religious sections at all research and higher-education teaching institutions. A special anti-religious faculty was instituted at the Institute of Red Professors in 1929.
In 1927 during an interview with the American labor delegation, Joseph Stalin affirmed that the party could not be neutral towards religion:
There are cases when some of the party members sometimes interfere with the all-out deployment of anti-religious propaganda. If such members of the Party are expelled, then it is very good, because such "Communists" have no place in the ranks of our Party." – Joseph Stalin
A campaign was led against schoolteachers of the old intelligentsia who were asserted to be working against the system and were even allowing priests to spiritually influence schoolchildren. Teachers accused of such could be fired, and in most cases the Soviet authorities imprisoned or exiled them.
The antireligious press identified by name believers among the ranks of top Soviet scholars. This labeling led to the 1929–1930 purge of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, in which up to 100 scholars, their assistants and graduate students were arrested on forged charges and given sentences that ranged from three years of internal exile to the death penalty. Most of them subsequently perished in camps or in prison. One of the aims of this purge was to take away the church's intellectuals and to assist the propaganda that only backward people believed in God.Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 1: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies, St Martin's Press, New York (1987) p. 46
In one instance the famous Soviet historian Sergei Platonov was asked why he appointed a Jew named Kaplan to the directorship of the Pushkin House, and he replied saying that Kaplan was not a Jew but an Orthodox Christian; on this basis Kaplan was sent to a concentration camp for five years.Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988) p. 43
The Central Committee called off "administrative measures" against religion from 1930 to 1931, which weakened the anti-religious educational work, but another resolution in September 1931 re-instituted active anti-religious education.
Sergii and the Church Most of the bishops arrested between 1928 and 1932 were arrested for reasons surrounding opposition to Metropolitan Sergius and his notorious declaration of loyalty. The state did officially maintain the line that church and state were separate in the Soviet Union during this time, despite the multiple arrests of people for not following their religious leaders. The GPU often cynically questioned arrested believers "what is your attitude to 'our' Metropolitan Sergii, heading the Soviet church?".Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Anti-Religious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988) p. 60
Opposition to Sergius was used as a pretext to close multiple churches and sending clergy to exile. The last officially functioning anti-Sergiite church in Moscow was closed in 1933 and in Leningrad in 1936.Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Anti-Religious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988) pg 65 After these churches were closed, they were usually demolished or turned to secular use (rather than being given to Sergii's jurisdiction as though they were really being closed simply for the reason of their opposition to Sergii). This campaign greatly diminished the number of functioning churches in the country.
Although officially anti-Sergiite churches were destroyed, multiple unofficial underground church communities existed and formed what was called 'The Catacomb Church'. This underground church movement claimed to be the true legitimate continuation of Orthodoxy in Russia.Daniel, Wallace L. "Father Aleksandr men and the struggle to recover Russia's heritage." Demokratizatsiya 17.1 (2009)
Twenty percent of inmates at the Solovki camps in 1928–1929 were imprisoned in connection with these affairs. Between 1928 and 1931, at least thirty-six bishops were imprisoned and exiled, and the total number surpassed 150 by the end of 1930. This did not mean, however, that clergy loyal to Sergii were safer for they were also widely attacked and arrested.Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988) p. 76
Metropolitan Sergii told foreign press in 1930 that there was no religious persecution and that Christianity shared multiple social goals with Marxism. A large number of clergy had made peace with Sergii by 1930.
Due to the massive number of bishops being arrested, both the Orthodox and the Renovationists consecrated bishops secretly who could take the place of arrested bishops and continue the apostolic lineage.Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Anti-Religious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988) p. 67 Also as a result of this massive arrest of bishops, the Orthodox Holy Synod ceased functioning in 1935.Tatiana A. Chumachenko. Edited and Translated by Edward E. Roslof. Church and State in Soviet Russia: Russian Orthodoxy from World War II to the Khrushchev years. ME Sharpe inc., 2002 pp3
According to the anti-religious press, priests would wander from village to village surreptitiously performing religious services in the homes of believers, while being disguised as wandering repairmen, or some other profession. It also claimed the young people were being attracted to Christianity by clergy who hired themselves out free of charge to youth parties as games organizers, musicians, choir directors, readers of secular Russian literature, drama-circle directors, etc.Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988) page 71 It also claimed that multiple believers were keeping themselves away from churches and priests due to shame of observing religious ritual overtly, and that in response to this multiple priests performed religious rituals in absentia; this meant that marriage ceremonies were performed over rings that were then sent to absent bride and groom, or that funeral services were performed over empty coffins in which the corpse was later laid in a secular funeral.
Legislative measures The League of Militant Godless called for sectarians to be expelled from farm management in 1929.
In 1929 Lunacharsky, made some statements in which he claimed that religious freedom could be suspended "when it is abused for the direct class struggle against the proletarian dictatorship".Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 1: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies, St Martin's Press, New York (1987) page 52 While Lunacharsky had urged moderation, this quotation would be taken out of context in order to justify the intense anti-religious persecution carried out in the next decade.