Anti-Religious Campaign in Saratov Volga Region (late 1920s - early 1940s): an Example of the Struggle against Western Christianity
Using archival material the author explores the anti-religious campaign against Western Christian denomination in the Saratov Volga region in the late 1920s - early 1940s, conducted by the Soviet state. The main believers of these faiths (Lutheranism, Catholicism, Mennonism, Baptism, etc.) were the Volga Germans. In this campaign, two closely interconnected components are clearly traced: administrative-organizational and propaganda. The first was aimed at eliminating the material basis for churches’ functioning (removal of religious buildings and other property, stranglehold by taxes and other levies, artificial restrictions on the registration and activities of religious communities, destruction of religious education, expulsion, arrest and repression of clergy and active believers). They were aimed at the most vulnerable places of the legal status of religious societies, and it was here where the most frequent and serious violations of the already rigid anti-religious legal base took place. The second component included monitoring the condition and activities of religious communities, identifying vulnerabilities for the subsequent prompt administrative strike against the relevant community or religious structure as a whole, as well as organizing and conducting anti-religious propaganda and campaigning by regional and local bodies of the CPSU (b), Komsomol, and the Union of Military Atheists.