ABSTRACT
In All-Union Census of 1970, the major Muslim nationalities of the Soviet Union, totalled 31,282,555, giving the Soviet Union a Muslim population exceeded only by Indonesia, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. In the major Soviet defeats of 19412, several million Soviet troops are captured, a significant proportion of them are Muslims; from these the Germans raised a number of anti-Soviet formations, including some regiments of Mussulman cavalry. The majority of Soviet Muslim soldiers, like the majority of Soviet Europeans, remained true to their allegiances, but some of the German-raised Muslim units showed an enthusiasm for the German cause not generally prevalent among their European counterparts. Soviet policy towards the Muslim areas has not been without success in its stated objective of achieving a withering away of religion, but that Islam retains a hold on much of the population as Christianity does in the European Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
