Persecution Of Christians In The Soviet Union
Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, Christianity was suppressed and persecuted to different extents depending on the particular era. Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union. Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and the elimination of religion.
The state was committed to the destruction of religion, and destroyed churches, mosques and temples, ridiculed, harassed and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with atheistic propaganda, and generally promoted 'scientific atheism' as the truth that society should accept. The total number of Christians killed, as a result of Soviet state atheist policies, has been estimated at over 20 million.
Religious beliefs and practices persisted among the majority of the population, in the domestic and private spheres but also in the scattered public spaces allowed by a state that recognised its failure to eradicate religion and the political dangers of an unrelenting culture war.
Read more about Persecution Of Christians In The Soviet Union: Official Soviet Stance, Soviet Tactics, Anti-religious Campaign 1917–1921, Anti-religious Campaign 1921–1928, Anti-religious Campaign 1928–1941, World War II Rapprochement, Postwar Era, Resumption of Anti-religious Campaign, 1964–1970s, Renewal of Persecution in 1970s, Penetration of Churches By Soviet Secret Services, Glasnost, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words soviet union, persecution, christians, soviet and/or union:
“In the Soviet Union everything happens slowly. Always remember that.”
—A.N. (Arkady N.)
“I hate Science. It denies a man’s responsibility for his own deeds, abolishes the brotherhood that springs from God’s fatherhood. It is a hectoring, dictating expertise, which makes the least lovable of the Church Fathers seem liberal by contrast. It is far easier for a Hitler or a Stalin to find a mock- scientific excuse for persecution than it was for Dominic to find a mock-Christian one.”
—Basil Bunting (1900–1985)
“We are no longer Christians: we have outgrown Christianity not because we have been too remote from it but rather because we have been too close—it is precisely our more stringent and more fastidious piety that forbids us to remain Christians nowadays.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
““Is there life on Mars?” “No, not there either.””
—Russian saying popular in the Soviet period, trans. by Vladimir Ivanovich Shlyakov (1993)
“I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.””
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)