WHAT WERE STALIN ’ S POLICIES TOWARDS RELIGION?

1. WHAT WERE STALIN’S POLICIES TOWARDS RELIGION? • MELANIE NGAI

2. Lenin AND THE BOLSHEVIKS Views on Religion

3. Under the Tzars • Russian Orthodox Church had been the national Church of the empire • Bolsheviks had always seen religion and the Churches as aspects of class division • The Bolsheviks were aggressively atheistic • Karl Marx described Religion as “the opium of the people”

4. November Revolution • Bolsheviks did not see religion as a threat • Freedom of religion was allowed • Churches not closed • However, the land owned by Churches were confiscated • Church and state legally separated • Registration of births, marriages and deaths became secular rather than religious

5. 1921 and Lenin’s death • Giving of religious instructions to those under 18 were banned • Anti Religious Campaigns were allowed • In 1924, Lenin died from stroke and was replaced by Stalin. • In honor of the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, the Soviet Union changed the city's name of St. Petersburg to Leningrad. • Leningrad became St. Petersburg again 67 years later when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

6. STALIN’S VIEWS ON RELIGION

7. Stalin’s Background • Joseph Stalin, whose real name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, was born and raised in Gori in what is now the nation of Georgia. • He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1953. • Stalin was raised very religious in the Russian Orthodox Church. • He was named after Saint Joseph and was raised to be a priest. • His father was a priest and young Joseph spent five years in a Russian Orthodox seminary • He became a religion suppressing atheist instead. • Stalin once said: You know, they are fooling us, there is no God… all this talk about God is sheer nonsense.

8. Anti Religious Campaigns • The attack on religion that began under Lenin, was continued by Stalin. • Worship of Stalin was encouraged but religious worship was strongly discouraged. • 1927: The Orthodox Church was granted official recognition in return for promises to stay out of politics and to be loyal to the Soviet regime • 1928: Stalin began a vigorous anti-religious campaign

9. Anti Religious Campaigns • Christian churches and mosques were closed down • And were converted into clubs, cinemas, schools, and warehouses. • Church bells were removed and melted down as scrap metal. • Women were forbidden to wear the veil • Pilgrimages to Mecca were banned. • Church leaders arrested and imprisoned. • Those who escaped arrest were forbidden to organize any religious activity in public.

10. Anti Religious Campaigns • In 1930 there were 30,000 Orthodox congregations • By 1939 only 1 in 40 churches were still functioning and only seven bishops were still active in the whole of the Soviet Union. • Only 1300 mosques were still operating in 1941 as against 26,000 in 1917. • The photograph pictured shows the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in the heart of Moscow. • Stalin ordered its destruction in 1931.

11. League of Militant Atheist • 1924, Communist Party set up a League to weaken the religious faith of the Soviet People (League of Militant Atheists) • By 1933 it had 5.5 million members • Set up anti-religious museums in former cathedrals • Burnt icons and other religious objects • Organised anti-religious propaganda campaigns • Kazan Cathedral converted into a museum of atheism