Question by Rob: Was atheism a factor in the persecution of religion in the Soviet Union?
Answers and Views:
Answer by Born Again Skeptic
No
@ Erick: Umm…no. Atheism isn’t a doctrine
Answer by Amber
Trust me, nobody has ever done anything in the name of atheism.
Answer by Erick
Stalin wanted to eradicate religion…aka the atheist viewpoint…so…
EDIT: Stalin wanted to eradicate religion and form a non-religious society (and non-religion is atheism)…
Answer by Boris
No, Marxism was the factor or, rather, philosophy. Marxism and atheism are far from synonymous.
Answer by tuyet n
It simply interfered with the megalomania of the leaders of the USSR.
Read all the answers in the comments.
Give your own answer to this question!
Perfect Purple says
Stalin and the Communists realized the power of oppression and over the intellect religion had over people throughout human history.
They wished to have this same power, only wanted it in the hands of the state, not a mythical god.
In that sense, you could argue atheism was a factor in religious persecution in the Soviet Union. However, it wasn’t prosecution in the name of a philosophical proposition that god does not exist, or the rejection of the belief he does, but in the absolute supremacy of the state over everything, including religion and the people’s concept of god.
bonsai bobby says
Yes,Atheistic,Marxist ideology as practiced in most communist states,does not allow for freedom of personal religious expression,apart from participation in carefully watched,state sponsored puppet churches..
I knew Pastor Richard Wurmbrand,mentioned by “T V is a Mind Control Box” and have seen the scars inflicted by those who violently oppose the practice of Christianity,in particular…Pastor Wurmbrand,was imprisoned,for a period of 14 years,under both Nazi and Communist occupations of Romania and willingly endured,by the Grace of God,many of the most terrible,sadistic and frightening physical and psycological tortures imaginable,rather than to accept immediate freedom,by spitting on the cross….
Ninja Turtle AM (忍者乌龟、无神论者的佛教徒） says
No, it is more like communism.
Communism is more religion like then atheist like.
“I am God your Lord, Thou shall had no other gods before me” — Bible God
“I am xx your Supreme Leader of the party, you shall listen to no others except the party” — Communist Leader A
numbnuts222 says
It was a factor.
The Galaxy Hitchhiker DOC says
Communism is atheistic in nature so in that sense it was a factor.
Eva Luten says
No religion was and during WW2 Stalin did reopen the churches . The main problem was political the churches wanted to maintain their power so the party closed them to prevent a second civil war .
If you had bothered to stay awake in school you would know this . Why is it Christians can’t seem to learn anything in school but can learn twisted crap in church with no problem ?
Linda J says
I think atheism got it’s biggest push during the French Revolution.
Many of them had been so brutally burned by the Catholic church of that day, they turned bitter and hard toward God entirely.
It has been active sense then, more so in Europe than in the US partly because Europeans have seen Christianity as just a replacement of their former religions as well as a replacement for the Roman Empire for so long, that Christianity has lost it’s truthfulness and it’s meaning.
Ignatius J. Reilly says
Other than the fact that the Commies were Atheist, no. They just wanted to control the hearts and minds of the people, and the church gave them a huge challenge on that issue.
chuckeasttom says
The soviet union persecuted ANYONE who did not tow the party line…yes that hit christians, but also jews, muslims, atheists, etc.
Incidently they had no problem with the Eastern Orthodox church (because they would tow the party line)
No evidence for scientism says
The only people to have ever tried to eradicate religion have been atheists. There has never been a time in history when a theist has tried to get rid of all religion. Let the evidence speak for itself. It is sad that atheists don’t accept the evidence, especially when we religious people admit that some people have done harm in the name of religion.
triviadude318 says
Yes. But not because there is something wrong with atheism in itself. But because the Soviet Union adopted it as it’s official state policy instead of leaving religious belief or lack of religious belief as a matter of individual choice. Thus anyone who didn’t share those beliefs was seen as a threat and disloyal to the state.
zeitgeist says
Frankly, I would hesitate to call them atheists, per se’.
I would imagine they suppressed religion more for the possible unrest it may have caused rather than the government * really * thinking there was no deity.
The government probably didn’t give a rat’s ass regarding whether or not there was any truth to their stance.
Herodotus says
A limited one. The central government in Moscow was truly devoid of ideology. It was all about power, and any institution as powerful as the Church was viewed as threat.
Høllyday Sapient says
Say it with me: C O M M U N I S M
– Communism is not atheism. –
Now, go find an encyclopedia and look it up. A real one. Not wiki-anyonecanedit-pedia-crap.
You’re welcome.
grrrrrwolf says
Communism didn’t want to compete with a supernatural being for loyalty. In my opinion, Communism was in fact was the religion of the state.
T.V. is a Mind Control Box says
The Soviet Union was the first state to have the elimination of religion as an ideological objective. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools.
Between 1917 and 1940, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested. In 1918, the Cheka under Felix Dzerzhinsky executed over 3000 Orthodox clergymen of all ranks. Some were drowned in ice-holes or poured over with cold water in winter until they turned to ice-pillars. In 1922, the Solovki Camp of Special Purpose, the first Russian concentration camp was established in the Solovki Islands in the White Sea [1]. Eight metropolitans, twenty archbishops, and forty-seven bishops of the Orthodox Church died there, along with tens of thousands of the laity. Of these, 95,000 were put to death, executed by firing squad.[citation needed] Father Pavel Florensky was one of the New-martyrs of this particular period.
In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.[19]
hey were herded into the forest, pushed into an abandoned mineshaft and grenades were then hurled into the mineshaft. Her remains were buried in Jerusalem, in the Church of Maria Magdalene.
Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with execution included torture being sent to prison camps, labour camps or mental hospitals.[20][21] Many Orthodox (along with peoples of other faiths) were also subjected to psychological punishment or torture and mind control experimentation in order to force them give up their religious convictions (see Piteşti prison). [22][23]
Thousands of churches were destroyed or converted to other uses, such as warehouses. Monasteries were closed and often converted to prison camps, most notably the Solovetz monastery becoming Solovki camp. Many members of clergy were imprisoned for anti-government activities.
Practising Orthodox Christians were restricted from prominent careers and membership in communist organizations (the party, the Komsomol). Anti-religious propaganda was openly sponsored and encouraged by the government, which the Church was not given an opportunity to publicly respond to.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the celebration of Christmas and the traditional Russian holiday of New Year (Feast of the Circumcision of Christ) was prohibited (later on New Year was reinstated as a secular holiday and is now the most significant family holiday in Russia). Gatherings and religious processions were initially prohibited and later on strictly limited and regulated.
In later years, a more subtle method of disrupting Christian holidays involved broadcasting very popular movies one after the other on the major holidays when believers are expected to participate in religious processions, especially during the Easter celebration. Apparently, this was intended to keep those whose faith was uncertain or wavering in their homes and glued to their TVs.[citation needed].
Between 1917 and 1935, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested. Of these, 95,000 were put to death, executed by firing squad.[citation needed]
It is estimated that 50,000 clergy were executed by the end of the Kruschev era. [24] Members of the church hierarchy were jailed or forced out, their places taken by docile clergy, many of whom had ties with the KGB.
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and its clergy became one of the victims of Soviet authorities in immediate postwar time. In 1945 Soviet authorities arrested, deported and sentenced to forced labor camps in Siberia and elsewhere the church’s metropolitan Josyf Slipyj and nine bishops, as well as hundreds of clergy and leading lay activists.
All the above-mentioned bishops and significant part of clergymen died in prisons, concentration camps, internal exile, or soon after their release during the post-Stalin thaw[25]. The exception was metropolitan Josyf Slipyj who, after 18 years of imprisonment and persecution, was released thanks to the intervention of Pope John XXIII, arrived in Rome, where he received the title of Major Archbishop of Lviv, and became cardinal in 1965[25].
Protestant believers in the USSR (baptists, pentecostals, adventists etc.) in the period after the Second world war were compulsively sent to mental hospitals, endured trials and prisons (often for refusal to enter military service). Some were even compulsively deprived of their parent rights.[26]
Openly religious people could not join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which meant that they could not hold any political office.
Richard Wurmbrand, author of Tortured for Christ described the systematic persecution of Christians in one East Bloc nation.
Enver Hoxha conducted a campaign to extinguish all forms of religion in Albania in 1967, closing all religious buildings and declaring the state atheist. Albania was the only Eastern Bloc nation that actually outlawed religion.
“As early as August 1
Circle Takes The Square says
No.
Dictatorships often persecute by their very nature.