Soviet anti-religious campaign

The Soviet anti-religious campaign was a state effort to weaken religious institutions and belief through propaganda, restrictions, confiscations, and repression.

League of Militant Atheists: A Soviet mass organization that promoted atheism and organized anti-religious propaganda. It helped carry the state campaign into workplaces, schools, and public life.
Marxism and religion: The Marxist analysis of religion as a social institution linked to material conditions and class relations. Marxist criticism provided the campaign's foundational account of religion.
Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union: State repression of Christian clergy, institutions, and believers across the Soviet period. Christian communities faced recurring restrictions and violence, especially during the Stalin era.
Russian Orthodox Church under Soviet rule: The Russian Orthodox Church's constrained institutional life under Soviet governments from 1917 to 1991. Its changing relationship with the state shows both subordination and periods of negotiated survival.
Laïcité: A model of secularism that organizes public institutions independently of religious authority. Unlike Soviet campaigns, laïcité need not entail state promotion of atheism or mass religious persecution.
Militant atheism: An organized effort to oppose religious belief and reduce religion's social influence. It supplied the campaign's ideological rationale and public messaging.
Russian Revolution: The revolutions of 1917 that overthrew the Russian monarchy and brought the Bolsheviks to power. The new Soviet government began transforming church-state relations after the Bolshevik seizure of power.
1922 Russian famine church valuables campaign: The Soviet campaign to seize church valuables in 1922, ostensibly to aid famine relief. The seizures provoked resistance and prosecutions while stripping churches of treasured property.
Underground church: Religious communities that operate secretly or outside official state control. Restrictions pushed some worship and religious teaching into private or clandestine settings.
Religious toleration: The acceptance of religious diversity and worship without coercive suppression. It contrasts with the Soviet effort to restrict institutions and diminish religious practice.

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