Kostroma anti-religious campaigns of the 1920–1930s

Abstract

The article analyses the reasons, methods and forms of anti-religious struggle in Kostroma land in the 1920s – 1930s. The article focuses on the activity of Kostroma branch of the League of Militant Atheists, whose efforts, in the author’s opinion, were aimed at building the ideological basis for the coming anti-church and anti-religious terror. The author of the article argues that fight against god was one of the meaning-forming ideologies of the emerging Soviet system, though aggressive atheistic propaganda in Kostroma turned out to be ineffective as Orthodox traditions allegedly were particularly strong here. The conclusion is made about the planned and purposeful destruction of the religious shrines of Kostroma and its historical appearance. After the attempts of a polemical dialogue with the Church in the first post-revolutionary years in the 1920s the Bolshevik government used the tactics of satirical ridicule of religion and religiosity, using all propaganda arsenals at the disposal of the state. It is claimed in the article that having being defeated at the front of anti-religious propaganda and agitation in the 1920s, the authorities did not hesitate to switch to repressive and punitive measures in the 1930s. Soviet and Communist Party leaders are depicted in the article as those who considered physical destruction of churches and the most active and influential part of the clergy to be the only effective means of fighting religion in Russian cities.