Bolshevik Atheism Against the Soul of Russia: The Destruction of Orthodoxy and Its Cultural Heritage
Diana Del Mastro
diana.delmastro@usz.edu.plUniversity of Szczecin (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1694-3973
Abstract
This study examines the Soviet regime’s anti-religious policies from 1917 to 1939, highlighting the strategies used to suppress faith and reshape society towards atheism. Following their rise to power, the Bolsheviks launched systematic persecution against the Russian Orthodox Church and other religious denominations, viewing religion as an obstacle to the construction of the communist state. Through restrictive decrees, propaganda, repression, and orchestrated schisms, the regime sought to eliminate religion from public life. The anti-religious campaign reached its peak during ‘Stalin’s Great Terror,’ with thousands of clergy members arrested and executed, and most places of worship destroyed. Although atheistic ideology became deeply embedded in the Soviet system, religious faith was never fully eradicated and re-emerged forcefully after the Stalinist era.
Keywords:
Soviet atheism, religious persecution, Russian Orthodox Church, Anti-religious propaganda, Cultural totalitarianismReferences
Anderson, J. (1991). The archives of the council for religious affairs. Religion, State and Society. Soviet Studies, 43(4), 689–710.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09668139108411956
Google Scholar
Anderson, J. (1994). Religion, State and Politics in the Soviet Union and Successor States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511598838
Google Scholar
Andrews, J. T. (2003). Science for the Masses: The Bolshevik State, Public Science, and the Popular Imagination in Soviet Russia, 1917–1934. Texas A&M University Press.
Google Scholar
Applebaum, A. (2004). Gulag: A History. New York: Anchor.
Google Scholar
Bernstein, S. (2017). Raised under Stalin: Young Communists and the Defense of Socialism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501709388
Google Scholar
Besançon, A. (1981). Anatomie d’un spectre: L’économie politique du socialisme réel. Paris: Calmann-Lévy.
Google Scholar
Brodskij, J. (1998). Solovski. Le isole del martirio. Da monastero a primo lager sovietico. Milano: La casa di Matriona.
Google Scholar
Burleigh, M. (2007). Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics from the Great War to the War on Terror. New York: HarperCollins.
Google Scholar
Conquest, R. (1999). Il Grande Terrore: Gli anni in cui lo stalinismo sterminò milioni di persone. Milano: R.C.S.
Google Scholar
Corley, F. (1996). Religion in the Soviet Union: An Archival Reader. London: Macmillan Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230390041
Google Scholar
Courtois, S. (1997). Le Livre noir du communisme. Crimes, terreur, répression. Paris: Robert Laffont.
Google Scholar
Curtiss, J. S. (1953). The Russian Church and the Soviet State, 1917–1950. Boston: Little, Brown.
Google Scholar
Davis, N. (2018). A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy. London: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429495496
Google Scholar
Freeze, G. L. (2009). Russia: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
Freeze, G. L. (2020). Religion and Revolution: The Russian Orthodox Church Transformed. W: D. Orlovsky (red.), A Companion to the Russian Revolution (s. 277–286). Wiley Blackwell.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118620878.ch22
Google Scholar
Fletcher, W. C. (1971). The Russian Orthodox Church Underground, 1917–1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
Gabel, P. (2005). And God Created Lenin: Marxism vs. Religion in Russia, 1917–1929. Amherst: Prometheus Books.
Google Scholar
Gregory, P. R. (2008). Lenin’s Brain and Other Tales from the Secret Soviet Archives. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.
Google Scholar
Grossman, J. D. (1972). Leadership of antireligious propaganda in the Soviet Union. Studies in Soviet Thought, 12(3), 213–230.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01043515
Google Scholar
Haskins, E. V. (2009). Russia’s post-communist past: The Cathedral of Christ the Savior. History and Memory, 21(1).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2979/his.2009.21.1.25
Google Scholar
Husband, W. B. (2000). “Godless Communists”: Atheism and Society in Soviet Russia, 1917–1932. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
Google Scholar
Janz, D. R. (1998). World Christianity and Marxism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195119442.001.0001
Google Scholar
Johnson, T. M. (2012). Christian Martyrdom: A Global Demographic Assessment. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Google Scholar
Kenworthy, S. M. (2018). Rethinking the Orthodox Church and the Bolshevik Revolution. Russian Revolution, 31, 1–23.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09546545.2018.1480893
Google Scholar
Kenworthy, S. M. (2021). Understanding World Christianity: Russia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv17vf4mn
Google Scholar
Kenez, P. (1985). The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511572623
Google Scholar
Krinko, E., Skorik, A., Shadrina, A. (2020). The Don and Kuban Regions During Famine. Nationalities Papers, 48, 569–584.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2019.120
Google Scholar
Lenin, V. I. (1960–1972). Collected Works (t. 1–45). Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Google Scholar
McMeekin, S. (2021). The Russian Revolution: A New History. New York: Basic Books.
Google Scholar
Milne, L. (1996). Bulgakov: The Novelist-Playwright. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Milne, L. (2004). Reflective Laughter: Aspects of Humour in Russian Culture. London: Anthem Press.
Google Scholar
Neumann, M. (2008). Revolutionizing mind and soul? Social History, 33(3), 243–267.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071020802268330
Google Scholar
Nelson, J. M. (2009). Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality. New York: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-87573-6
Google Scholar
Peris, D. (1998). Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501735196
Google Scholar
Pospielovsky, D. V. (1984). The Russian Church Under the Soviet Regime, 1917–1982. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Google Scholar
Pospielovsky, D. V. (1987). A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Antireligious Policies (t. 1). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18838-3_1
Google Scholar
Ramet, S. P. (1993). Religious Policy in the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511598272
Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, A. (2021). Constructing Consumer Culture. New York: Merrill C. Berman Collection.
Google Scholar
Roslof, E. E. (2002). Red Priests: Renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, and Revolution, 1905–1946. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2979/2770.0
Google Scholar
Saktaganova, Z. G. (2018). State–religious relations during the Soviet period. European Journal of Science and Theology, 14(1), 103–114.
Google Scholar
Shukman, A. (2006). Metropolitan Sergii Stragorodsky. Religion, State & Society, 34(1).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09637490500459958
Google Scholar
Solzhenitsyn, A. I. (1973). The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956 (t. 1–2). New York: Harper & Row.
Google Scholar
Strickland, J. (2013). The Making of Holy Russia. Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Publications.
Google Scholar
Swan, J. (2015). Chosen for His People: A Biography of Patriarch Tikhon. Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Publications.
Google Scholar
Tchepournaya, O. (2003). The hidden sphere of religious searches. Sociology of Religion, 64(3), 377–387.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3712491
Google Scholar
Volkogonov, D. (1994). Lenin: A New Biography. New York: Free Press.
Google Scholar
Wallace, D. (2006). The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar
Wallace, D. (2009). Father Aleksandr Men and the struggle to recover Russia’s heritage. Demokratizatsiya, 17(1), 73–92.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3200/DEMO.17.1.73-92
Google Scholar
Walters, P. (1978). The Living Church 1922–1946. Religion in Communist Lands, 6(4), 235–243.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09637497808430885
Google Scholar
Walters, P. (1991). The Renovationist Coup. W: G. A. Hosking (red.), Church, Nation and State in Russia and Ukraine (s. 250–270). London: Macmillan.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21566-9_15
Google Scholar
Yakovlev, A. N. (2002). A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Google Scholar
Authors
Diana Del Mastrodiana.delmastro@usz.edu.pl
University of Szczecin Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1694-3973
Diana Del Mastro - PhD/assistant professor at the Faculty of Theology - University of Szczecin (Poland). Her academic work focuses on Philosophy, Aesthetics, and the symbolic dimensions of Perception. She has authored numerous publications, including 35 scholarly articles, 7 edited volumes, and 3 monographs, with particular emphasis on the thought of Pavel A. Florenskij and his contributions to philosophical and aesthetic theory. Her recent monographs include: Pavel A. Florenskij e l’arte della vertigine (Loffredo editore, Napoli 2023), Passages. Épistémologie, esthétique, langage dans l’itinéraire scientifique et spirituel de Pavel A. Florenskij (L’Harmattan, Paris 2021).
Statistics
Abstract views: 46PDF downloads: 16
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Diana Del Mastro

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
