ABSTRACT
The eradication of religion in Russia became a matter of policy with the success of the Communist victory in the Russian Revolution of October 1917. It is quite remarkable how quickly Lenin had begun to attempt fulfilling these goals. Certainly, already in 1918, extreme measures were taken such as the dissolution of monasteries, an increase in the seizure of Church properties, and a large number of arrests of clergy. Numerous ideological and pragmatic justifications were routinely offered. Staggering the Church with early heavy blows was important but these were seen as preludes to the larger and ultimate task. Executions, arrests, and property seizures were supplemented by the use of hunger and famine, ‘objective allies,’ when pragmatically feasible.1
His famous hanging orders of 1918 are often cited. In an ideological sense, the Church and its clergy were clearly seen as ene-
mies, the most nonconformist element and the most dangerously subversive to the new Bolshevik-Marxist cause. One of the premier scholars of the Russian Church in the 20th century, Michael Bourdeaux, says it plainly when he speaks of ‘the unrelenting communist attempt to combat religion, either by direct physical attack, by re-education of the masses or by undermining its integrity through subversion of its leadership.’2 Felix Corley notes perceptively: ‘the bureaucracy was never prepared to admit that religious groups had an absolute right to exist, nor that their tolerated existence could escape the state’s control [ … ] The state made no apology or gave no excuse for its arbitrary meddling: the Churches were merely there to be used in the interests of the Communist state.’ Further, Corley simply notes: ‘Religious groups had to be controlled for the totalitarian state to work.’3 Another leading scholar, Jane Ellis, has observed that ‘the theological schools, monasteries, the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Patriarchate itself – are nowhere mentioned in any public legislation and their existence is entirely de facto [ … ]’4
