Memory and Survival in Stalin's Russia

The remarkable revival of religious activities in post-Communist Russia gave rise to scepticism among social scientists, who characterised this religious revival as a swing of the 'ideological pendulum' from atheism to religion. These scholars represented religion in the post-Soviet era as a mechanical substitute for the Soviet ideological system, described as a kind of civil religion. ¹ This argument, therefore, downplays the survival of religion in the pre-perestroika Soviet Union, and rules out the continuity between 'religious survival' and 'religious revival'.