The Soviet Religious State

Abstract

The author analyzes two issues: Soviet ideology and legislature concerning religion. The liquidation of religious beliefs was deemed a sine qua non condition to build communism, thus the spreading of atheism became in the USSR one of the most important tasks of the state. The Soviet legislature concerning religion, introduced on January 1, 1923, dissolved all the existent parishes of all denominations and nationalized any property of the Orthodox/Roman Church. For a new religious commune to exist it was necessary to register it with appropriate authorities. The founding group numbered twenty people. The registered commune had no legal body and could not own any property. The above legislature prohibited religious instruction to teenagers under 18. In fact the Soviet constitution guaranteed denominational neutrality of the state but it was total fiction from the beginning. Thus atheism became the official ideology of the state spread by any means, being at its disposal. This ideology became a pseudoreligion. It had its concrete forms of practicing. Evading it was very severely punished.