State atheism, (
gosateizm, a
syllabic abbreviation of "state" (
gosudarstvo) and "atheism" (
ateizm)), was a major goal of the official
Soviet ideology.
[42] To that end, the regime expropriated church property, publication of information against religious beliefs and the official promotion of anti-religious materials in the education system.
After the
Russian Civil War, the state used its resources to stop the implanting of religious beliefs in nonbelievers and remove "prerevolutionary remnants" that still existed.
[42] The
Bolsheviks were particularly hostile toward the
Russian Orthodox Church (which supported the
White Movement during the
Russian Civil War) and saw it as a supporter of
Tsarist autocracy.
[43] During a process of
collectivization of land, Orthodox priests distributed pamphlets declaring that the Soviet regime was the
Antichrist coming to place "the Devil's mark" on the peasants, and encouraged them to resist the government.
[43] Political repression was widespread in the Soviet Union, and while religious persecution was applied to most religions,
[44] the regime's anti-religious campaigns were often directed against specific religions based on state interests, that varied over time. The attitude in the Soviet Union toward religion varied from a total ban on some religions to official support of others.
From the late 1920s to the late 1930s, such organizations as the
League of Militant Atheists ridiculed all religions and harassed believers.
[45] Anti-religious and atheistic propaganda was implemented into every portion of soviet life: in schools, communist organizations such as the
Young Pioneer Organization, and the media. Though Lenin originally introduced the
Gregorian calendar to the Soviets, subsequent efforts to reorganise the week to improve worker productivity saw the introduction of the
Soviet calendar, which had the side-effect that a "holiday will seldom fall on Sunday".
[46]
Within about a year of the revolution, the state
expropriated all church property, including the churches themselves, and in the period from 1922 to 1926, 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and more than 1,200 priests were killed (a much greater number was subjected to persecution).
[44] Most seminaries were closed, and publication of religious writing was banned.
[44] The Russian Orthodox Church, which had 54,000 parishes before World War I, was reduced to 500 by 1940.
[44] A meeting of the Antireligious Commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (
Bolsheviks) that occurred on 23 May 1929 estimated the portion of believers in the
USSR at 80 percent, though this percentage may be understated to prove the successfulness of the struggle with religion.
[47]
Despite the Soviet Union's attempts to eliminate religion,
[42][48][49] other former USSR and anti-religious nations, such as
Armenia,
[50] Kazakhstan,
[51] Uzbekistan,
[52] Turkmenistan,
[53] Kyrgyzstan,
[54] Tajikistan,
[55] Belarus,
[56][57] Moldova,
[58] and
Georgia[59] have high religious populations.
[60] Author Niels Christian Nielsen has written that the post-Soviet population in areas which were formerly predominantly Orthodox are now "nearly illiterate regarding religion", almost completely lacking the intellectual or philosophical aspects of their faith and having almost no knowledge of other faiths.
[61] Nonetheless, their knowledge of their faith and the faith of others notwithstanding, many post-Soviet populations have a large presence of religious followers.
