Soviet anti-religious legislation

The government of the Soviet Union followed an unofficial policy of state atheism, aiming to gradually eliminate religious belief within its borders. While it never officially made religion illegal, the state nevertheless made great efforts to reduce the prevalence of religious belief within society. To this end, at various times in its history it engaged in anti-religious persecutions of varying intensity and methodology. Believers were never officially attacked for being believers, but they were officially attacked for real or perceived political opposition to the state and to its policies. These attacks, however, in the broader ideological context were ultimately meant to serve the ultimate goal of eliminating religion, and the perceived political opposition acted as a legal pretext to carry this out. Thus, although the Soviet Union was officially a secular state and guaranteed freedom of religion in its constitutions, in practice believers suffered discrimination and were widely attacked for promoting religion.

As part of its anti-religious campaigns, the Soviet state enacted a significant body of legislation that regulated and curtailed religious practices. This, along with many secret instructions that were not published, formed the legal basis for the Soviet state's anti-religious stance. Laws were designed in order to hurt and hamper religious activities, and the state often vigilantly watched religious believers for their breaking of these laws to justify arresting them. In some places, volunteer neighbourhood committees, called "public commissions for control over observance on the laws about religious cults", watched their religious neighbours and reported violations of the law to the appropriate authorities. The state sought to control religious bodies through such laws with the intention of making those bodies disappear. Often such laws incorporated many ambiguities that allowed for the state to abuse them in order to persecute believers.

This article lists and discusses some of the most important legislation below, although this list is by no means comprehensive.

From November 1917 until Lenin's Decree on the Separation of Church and State in January 1918, legislative measures against religion were enacted. Among important Acts included:

i) Act of the Commissar of Education, 11 December 1917: ... It is declared that all control of educational matters shall be handed over to the Commissariat of Education from all religious organizations. All church/parish schools, teachers colleges, religious colleges and seminaries, ... all missionary schools, [and] all academies ... with all of their property, both movable and immovable, i.e. with all buildings ... land, with all gardens, with all libraries ... valuables, capital and vulnerable papers ... and with all that was credited to the above-mentioned schools and institutions, shall likewise be handed over to the Commissariat of Education. ... (Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars VI Lenin).

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