Religious Policy in the Soviet Union

Church-state relations have undergone a number of changes during the seven decades of the existence of the Soviet Union. In the 1920s the state was politically and financially weak and its edicts often ignored, but the 1930s saw the beginning of an era of systematic anti-religious persecution. There was some relaxation in the last decade of Stalin's rule, but under Khrushchev the pressure on the Church was again stepped up. In the Brezhev period this was moderated to a policy of slow strangulation of religion, and Gorbachev's leadership saw a thorough liberalization and re-legitimation of religion. This 1992 book brings together fifteen of the West's leading scholars of religion in the USSR. Bringing much hitherto unknown material to light, the authors discuss the policy apparatus, programmes of atheisation and socialisation, cults and sects, and the world of Christianity.

Table of Contents:
Preface Sabrina Petra Ramet; Part I. Introduction: 1. A survey of Soviet religious policy Philip Walters; 2. Religious policy in the era of Gorbachev Sabrina Petra Ramet;; Part II. Policy Apparatus: 3. The Council for Religious Affairs Otto Luchterhandt; 4. Some reflections about religious policy under Kharchev Jane Ellis; 5. The state, the church, and the oikumene: the Russian Orthodox Church and the World Council of Churches, 1948–85 J. A. Hebly; Part III. Education, Socialisation, and Values: 6. Fear no evil: schools and religion in Soviet Russia, 1917–41 Larry E. Holmes; 7. Soviet schools, atheism and religion John Dunstan; 8. The Ten Commandments as values in Soviet people's consciousness Sameul A. Kliger and Paul H. De Vries; 9. Out of the kitchen, out of the temple: religion, atheism and women in the Soviet Union John Anderson; Part IV. Cults and Sects: 10. Dilemmas of the spirit: religion and atheism in the Yakut-Sakha Republic Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer; 11. The spread of modern cults in the USSR Oxana Antic; Part V. The World of Christianity: 12. The Russian Orthodox Renovationist Movement and its Russian historiography during the Soviet period Anatolii Levitin-Krasnov; 13. The re-emergence of the Ukrainian (Greek) Catholic Church in the USSR Myroslaw Tataryn; 14. Protestantism in the USSR Walter Sawatsky; 15. Epilogue: religion after the collapse Sabrina Petra Ramet; Appendix; Index.

Review :
"The book deserves to be in college and university libraries and on the book shelves of all who are interested in Soviet dealings with religion." Paul Mojzes, Slavic Review "...opens a new stage in the study of religion in the USSR, no longer as a subject of political science but of historical research." Serhii Plokhy, Canadian Slavonic Papers