Agent and Operational Activities towards Evangelical Churches in the USSR in the 1920s — 1930s

Abstract

This study focuses on the agent-operative activities of state security agencies with respect to religious organizations as one of the main instruments of combating religion in the Soviet Union. The sources analyzed in the article provide the basis for a number of important conclusions about the agent-operative activities of state security agencies with respect to Protestant Sects. Throughout the entire Soviet period of Russian history, the main target of recruitment was believers themselves, primarily members of denominational leadership. The possibility to obtain reliable information from them, as well as to exert indirect influence on religious organizations through them, primarily for their internal degradation and control, compensated the Chekists for the difficulties in recruiting sectarians and their unreliability as agents. However, despite all the advantages that a functioning agency and intelligence apparatus offered, intelligence activities were subject to sharp fluctuations, especially in the 1930s. The decline occurred mainly during periods when the state sought to eliminate religious organizations through administrative repression. At other times, agent-operative activities were an integral part of church-state relations.